June 8, 2003 Sermon

Rev. Nancy D. Dean

June 8, 2002 - Blessing of the Animals Sunday

Gifts of Love: Companionship

This is the third and last in this series of sermons on the Gifts of Love. This gift of companionship is among those that most people rate at the highest of love’s gifts, along with time and compassion. Companionship, the friendship or society of another person, or several people, is of such inestimable value, yet we seldom understand it, even though we often have less than we want or need.

In marriages or partnerships, it is ultimately the companionship of the other person that means the most to us. To have that valued friend who is there for us, the one we are there for, that relationship is the very the foundation of our lives. And, of course mindful that today is our Blessing of the Animals Sunday, we know that our pets can be our companions in a way people often are not. So to have companions, to cultivate such relationships of companionship, is a gift of great joy, one we sometimes deserve, but sometimes do not. Generally we tend to view the kinds of friends who might be termed casual, or indeed fair-weather friends, these acquaintances are at a more casual level than the word companionship denotes for most people. Friendship and even companionship have varying levels of depth or importance.

Having spent a good part of my graduate education studying the British literary period between the first and second world wars, I learned about companions who are of a special sort, but embody many of the characteristics of the kind most people value. This was the paid companion, a woman who would act as a kind of friend, not a servant, not always a real friend, but someone, usually a younger woman, who kept a wealthy woman company, attended to her entertaining, various chores that the woman might do for herself, but would prefer not to do. This sort of paid companion was much less common in this country, but did have its time, primarily in the 19th Century. The companion shared meals with her employer, she traveled with her, helped her with her personal shopping for wardrobe, etc. Sometimes the paid companion was a cousin of reduced circumstances, or daughter of such an acquaintance. It was a kind of no-woman’s land where you neither were one thing, nor the other, in a strongly class-based society. Sometimes the companion was a general dog’s body, given a hard time by demanding employer, reminded often of her position of obligation. Occasionally, though, the paid companion became a true friend, a companion at the level of feelings and sympathies, and this is the kind of companionship we value the most. Both of these kinds of companions figure in the literature of Victorian and early 20th Century English literature.

Pet as companions also figure largely in literature, for they are so very present in real life. Now most of our pets are not as devoted as Lassie or Greyfriar’s Bobby, but pets are real companions. They keep us company, share their presence and affection with us. And for many of us, it is our pets that make us have a reason for living. The cat curled in the lap, the faithful dog lying contentedly at the chair-side, these are real and comforting images of pet companionship.

Writer George Graham Vest stated this about the companionship of a pet:

The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog. A man’s dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground...if only he may be near his master’s side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer, he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounter with roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains...as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.

But it is important to remember that great pet companions do not come any easier than human companions, which is why so many pets wind up in shelters and pounds. You have to be willing and able to give the pet what it needs if you are to get what you need from the pet. Remember Ben Franklin’s maxim, that to have a friend, you have to be a friend. This works on all levels of friendship and companionship, human or pet.

Let me distinguish these two terms, friendship and companionship. Most of us have some friends that are not our companions, either because they live at a distance, or they simply do not mean as much to us as those we could consider companions. A friend can be a companion and vice versa, but a companion as I am using it here, is one with whom we desire to spend our time, and a lot of our time.

I believe that the best marriages/unions are those in which the partners are true companions; they desire to be in each other’s presence more than any other. When parted, they long for the other, pine for the other if the absence is extended.

Aristotle described friendship at the companionship level in this way, as a relationship where the friends “share one another’s ends and are deeply influenced by one another, [but] each retains independence and critical autonomy.” Aristotle also says that some things so essential to the “good life” that without them life is deficient. Friendship, he states, is “so valuable, so important, that a life that lacked this one item, even though it had as much as you like of every other item, would fall short of full value or goodness in an important way. Friendship does not supply a commodity that we can get elsewhere; it is that very thing, in its own peculiar nature, that is the bearer of value. This is what it means to judge that something is an end, not simply a means to an end: there are no trade-offs without loss." Love's Knowledge, Martha Nussbaum)

Companionship implies mostly a positive, yet there can be a negative aspect to companionship, as well. We can be too devoted to another, so devoted that we lose our judgment about what is right and wrong, good or bad. This is the nature of an unhealthy friendship. We as parents and guardians are always warning our children to be wary of this kind of friendship. We tell them that a good friend would not ask us or want us to do anything that is wrong or bad for them or for us, but we also tend to teach more unconsciously about friends who sacrifice all, give all for their friends in our morality tales (and every age has its own variety of morality tale)

There are some wonderful stories of companionship in the scriptural literature of the world’s holy books. In the Hebrew Scriptures, is the story of David and Jonathan. Saul, the King of Israel, had expected and wanted his son Jonathan to become the next King. But the prophets had told him that David was to become the next King. Saul was angered by this news, sought to have David killed. But the fact that David would become the next king never affected Jonathan’s relationship with David. Jonathan, the Bible tells us, was devoted to David, loved David, and Jonathan even risked his life to help his friend David. This level of companionship makes such a good story because we know that it is rare, but that it is also beautiful.

In the even more ancient literature of Sumeria (modern day Syria) is the story or epic of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh has a friend and companion named Enkidu, whom he loved devotedly. He loved him and missed him so much that when Enkidu died, Gilgamesh tried to go to the land of the dead to get him back.

Epicurus, 4th Century Greek philosopher, from whom we get the term and idea of Epicureanism: “[Epicurus] says that you should rather have regard to the company with whom you eat and drink, than to what you eat and drink. [An, further] No possession is gratifying without a companion.” (Seneca)

The ways in which we develop these friends who become our companions is endlessly varied. Naturally, affinities come into this; that is, the people who become our companions share something special of our interests-not everything, but something that gives that simpatico feeling as the Italians term it. In sympathy with our feelings. I have known great companionships to emerge from a shared love for literature, hiking-running-walking, for volunteer work, theater, etc. Many devoted friendships have resulted from college, work, military connections that deepened to great friendships. And certainly, many great friendships have come from churches, congregations just like this one; in fact, the social aspect of faith communities has long been demonstrated to be its greatest strength.

We seek out from among all the people we meet, those people we sense or realize share something of our approach to the world. Or, in the words of Margaret Mead, we are attracted to people for whom "we continue to meet and take delight in one another's minds."

We like each other, we like to be with each other, we just like to be in the presence of the other, even when we are doing or saying nothing. In fact, this often denotes the true companion; that is, the person with whom we can have long periods of silence, yet it is no strain or discomfort. Just being in the presence of that person is a joy.

Certainly, this is the quality of our pet companions, though they have their own ways of communicating with us. In my house live three cats, with three very distinct personalities, and they let me know very clearly if they want food, or want to go outside, or want to lie on one’s lap.

Many of you pet lovers can relate to this man’s story:

A few years ago, my wife and I left our house and our lovable mutt, Duffy, in the care of my wife’s aunt Aggie, while we visited relatives in Norway. On the first day after our departure, Aggie was alone in our living room, working on her needlepoint. At 4:30 p.m. Duffy took up a position at her feet, staring intently at her. Aggie did not know that Duffy has trained his humans to feed him promptly at 4:30, so she continued with her work. [One assumes she had yet to look at the schedule.]

Duffy cleared his throat. Aggie did not respond. Duffy yelped twice. Still no response. Duffy barked sharply. Aggie wondered if he were hungry but, assuming that his dinner hour was much later, paid no attention. Duffy growled, barked, pushed off with his paws against her thighs. Aggie was annoyed but tried to ignore him. At this point, Duffy picked up her knitting basket in his jaws and carried it to the kitchen, depositing it near his food dish. Aggie got the point. Duffy got his dinner.

A lot of what makes this act of love so important to us has to do with communication. Now you have all heard that failures in relationships of all kinds almost always boil down to a breakdown or failure of communications. The problem with this is that so many people do not understand what good or bad communication really means. If you have a true human companion or a pet companion, you know exactly what communication is, for your ability to read each other, to speak and hear equally what the person or pet wants seems so effortless.

My husband knows when I am troubled or happy whether I tell him or not; this is true in most good relationships. The fact is, we are actively alert for changes, ups and downs, so the act of communicating may seem effortless, but it is not without effort. For when we love and value the companionship of the partner, friend, or pet, we pay attention. This story illustrates that communication is not always about the obvious:

Mrs. Green had recently acquired a dog and was proudly demonstrating his good points to a friend. “I know he’s not what you would call a pedigree dog,” she admitted, “but if a stranger comes within fifty feet of the house, he lets us know about it.”

“What does he do?” asked her friend. “Bark the house down?”

“No...he crawls under the sofa.”

Since I came to serve this congregation in 1995, we have been annually observing the Blessing of the Animals. We do this because we know how valuable companionship really it. We know that we long for this in our own lives, and that we would support this very great gift of love.

As I read this morning from the work of the liberal Christian theologian Frederick Buechner: “To lose yourself in another’s arms, or in another’s company . . . to lose yourself in such ways is to find yourself. [This] is what it’s all about. Is what love is.”

To learn what love is, to learn how to do love, how to be love, is what religion should always be about. The social aspect of faith communities has long been demonstrated to be its greatest strength, as previously stated, but this understates how important it is for you and me to have the companionship of spiritually like-minded people. In this community, I say at the dedication of children, you will learn to know why a thing is right or why it is wrong. But our act of dedication goes further to say that we will be responsible for you as you grow (physically, mentally, spiritually) as companions in the search for meaning and love.

This is what gets us up on Sunday morning to bring ourselves and our children (sometimes kicking and screaming) to find the companionship of all souls who seek to know truth, beauty, and justice-which are the fruits of the gifts of love. May it always be so.

So be it.